Using Social Media to Promote Your Business

Why Facebook?
Because Facebook is so popular and widespread with an estimated more than one billion users as of early 2013, it is a crucial to promote your firm, especially through the use of eye-catching graphics and interesting text. Not only does it help promote your company on an ongoing basis, but it can also be used to promote your booth before a large tradeshow.

You can use a variety of visual and writing strategies on Facebook to promote the firm and engage with clients, particularly before, during and after any event in which you participate.

Remember to create a graphic that you will use on your social networks before every event . It should be eye-catching, and of course include relevant information about the event such as names, times, dates, and a registration link.

Facebook is also a super way to put together and post event images - people love seeing themselves online. Post images during an event and place them in an album for attendees to see after after the event.

On an ongoing basis, post new photos about what's happening in your company with short articles explaining your new developments.

Although Facebook is a fun and highly efficient way of connecting with and staying in touch with customers, it requires a lot of work on an ongoing basis. BUT, it pays off big-time.

What is LinkedIn?
If that is the first question that you ask, then you need to come up-to-date quickly!
Already several years old, LinkedIn is the biggest social networking website. Although most of the people on it are individuals, you can also post a  company entry with details of who you are, what you do, where you are based and a whole range of other useful information.

LinkedIn is particularly vital ahead of big events because you can promote registration with your visual image and landing page. Post your event on relevant LinkedIn groups to get some additional exposure.

Company employees are a great way for promoting your participation via LinkedIn. Ensure that you have socialized your event and encourage them to share your registration page on their LinkedIn pages as well.

As with all social media, setting up and updating your Linkedin page takes time and dedication.

Twitter
With social media, you need to execute on many different tactics during an event and a plan helps you organize and stay focused.

Twitter is a powerful tool for not only marketing and promoting your events, but also engaging and connecting with the audience and attendees in real time. Use Twitter to live tweet, interact with partners and influencers, and drive traffic to your event page. The first step is to make sure you set up a hashtag for your event to use on Twitter, and make sure this is well publicized. If you are giving a webinar, the hashtag should be announced by the moderator and listed on the slides. If you are attending a live event, make sure you tweet the hashtag beforehand and include it on promotional materials.

Whether it is a webinar, virtual event, or a tradeshow, having someone manning your Twitter presence will ensure that you engage with attendees and can reply to anyone who might have a question or comment.

These are the three main social networks for businesses to use. There are others, of course, but until they prove their potency, Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter will continue to lead the way.